Thursday, November 12, 2009

Green Eggs (Minus Ham)


When I was a kid I would never eat eggs, much less green eggs. But since my daughter has pretty much every possibly opposite taste bud from me, she loves eggs. And when I started giving her green eggs, like from her book Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss, she just sat down and ate them like always.

She didn't even ask for an explanation as to why I was giving her green eggs.

She just ate them. (I shouldn't be surprised, but I was anyway. I mean, this is a kid that eats rocks and random yard-growing mushrooms and little ends of who-knows-what that's lying in the street or in the corners you haven't cleaned for a year.)

So I keep giving them to her. And I tell myself in 3 years when she tells me she hates spinach I can reveal that she's been eating spinach her whole life already. It's true. You can't taste the spinach at all this way.

Green Eggs adapted from Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld

1 1/2 T butter
3 large handfuls of baby spinach
4 T milk, divided
4 eggs
salt and pepper to taste
handful of shredded cheese (about 1/3 C)

1. Heat a non-stick or cast iron pan over medium heat. Melt butter.

2. When skillet feels very hot over medium heat add baby spinach. Stir with a wooden spoon until the spinach wilts and fits in the pan very easily. .

3. Add 2 T milk, stir the spinach and milk until liquid is mostly evaporated and the spinach is cooked. Take off heat.

4. Puree the spinach in the blender or cuisinart or magic bullet (I think this is the easiest to clean, if you have it).

5. Whisk together the eggs in a bowl with 2 T milk. Stir in pureed spinach.

6. Heat the same skillet you cooked the spinach in over medium heat. When it is hot, add the eggs to the pan. Stir the eggs around with the wooden spoon. Add salt and pepper to taste. You can "fluff" the eggs more if you work in a folding motion. (In my picture, you can see I was trying an experimental method with a whisk as they cooked. Not smart-- too many little pieces.)

7. When the eggs are cooked, throw some shredded cheese (mozz, cheddar, whatever you have handy) on the top and let melt for about 30 seconds.

Serves 2-3. If you're Amaya, it serves 1, with a little leftover for me. StumbleUpon

4 comments:

Ann said...

Have you ever tried green eggs with lots of pesto? It's great too! I'm jealous that your daughter will not only read the book with you but then eat the eggs. Future goals for me:)

Natalie Que said...

Hey, thanks for your comments on my blog about tips for kids eating. I don't have but would actually LOVE some ideas for the greens, I guess we have the same problem! My kids see anything green, even sweets or something totally delicious, and they refuse most of the time! They will occasionally eat salad, and actually my son is randomly loving sauteed brown butter asparagus with sea salt too. I call broccoli 'baby trees' and that helped for a while too!

One trick I do have for carrots, is to make them think it is cheese. For instance, I put grated carrot in things like omelettes, making it blend in with the orange cheese. Could be done with anything if you grate the carrot fine enough!

Your blog is lovely, and thanks again!

Mariko said...

CARROTS. That is an amazing idea. I tend to use cheese as my default (yeah, can you tell?) but she would probably believe that carrots were cheese. My daughter is weird about greens. She won't eat spinach, but she loves to find clovers (even bitter ones-- the gota kola plant) and will eat tons of those. I have some more ideas about spinach, however. I'll post them soon.
(also, if you have a dominant color of red, no one will notice a little green mixed in, like with spaghetti sauce.)

And Ann, I love the pesto idea. That sounds really tasty, and I'm going to try it next.

Diana Bauman said...

This is genious! I'm off to buy green eggs and ham and try this out as well.

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